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This is the Kodak Moment for the Auto Industry

Plug-In Drivers Not Missin' the Piston Electric vehicles are here to stay. Their market acceptance is currently small but growing...

Monday, June 27, 2011

My Nissan Leaf Forum • Adapters for Ingineer's L1 to L2 EVSE mod NOW AVAILABLE

My Nissan Leaf Forum • View topic - Adapters for Ingineer's L1 to L2 EVSE mod NOW AVAILABLE: "For those of you who are familiar with Ingineer's Nissan L1 to L2 EVSE mod (discussed in this thread), you are no doubt interested adapters like those discussed in this thread. As I mentioned in that thread, my brother has picked up the gauntlet and is willing to make them for us. We're going to try and keep this simple so we're not making a full time business out of this. Please bear with us and be sure to read the threads listed above first so you know what you're asking for up front...

The following adapters are available for sale:

A5*: $50, fits NEMA 5-15 & 5-20 (120v - household)
A6**: $60, fits NEMA 6-30 & 6-50 (240v - industrial parks, welders, hotel A/C units, etc.)
A10: $60, fits NEMA 10-30 & 10-50 (240v - 'old style' appliances)
A14: $60, fits NEMA 14-30, 14-50 & 14-60 (240v - 'new style' appliances, campground, rv parks, etc.)
ACS: $90***, fits CS6365 (240v - public parks, stadiums, heavy duty portable generators, etc.)"

Sunday, June 19, 2011

Q&A: Renault-Nissan CEO Pledges $5.6 Billion for EVs | Autopia | Wired.com

Q&A: Renault-Nissan CEO Pledges $5.6 Billion for EVs | Autopia | Wired.com: "The CEO of the Renault-Nissan Alliance is easily the auto industry’s biggest advocate of electric vehicles, possessed of an enthusiasm bordering on fanaticism. Others may speak with louder voices, but no one is placing a bigger bet on cars with cords."

Friday, June 17, 2011

Kilowatts for Gallons

Gasoline and Oil: "How much electricity does it take to make a gallon of gasoline? We don't know - but here's one stab at it. Ballpark figures only, and NOT a supportable conclusion. The most important message to take away is that it is not trivial! This part of gasoline is ignored by the folks who are concerned about the big impact on our electrical grid if we were to suddenly shift all transportation from gasoline to electricity.

To extract one gallon of gasoline (or equivalent distillate): 9.66 kWh (maybe not all in the form of electricity*)

To refine that gallon: 2.73 kWh additional energy (maybe not all in the form of electricity*)
Total: 12.39 kWh per gallon.

*Roughly one-third of the energy content of a gallon of gasoline produced from California wells is input from natural gas. Less than 2/3's is net energy (probably a lot less!).

So I can get 24 miles in my ICE on a gallon of gasoline, or I can get 41 miles (at 300wh/mile) in my RAV4EV just using the energy to refine that gallon. Alternatively - energy use (electricity and natural gas) state wide goes DOWN if a mile in a RAV4EV is substituted for a mile in an ICE!

Assumptions (sorry, lots of apples and oranges comparisons here):

Data from these sources:
petro industry numbers Word HTML
http://tonto.eia.doe.gov/oog/info/state/ca.html"

Saturday, June 4, 2011

EV Route Mapping with Physics models

Celadon Applications - About Us: "Road2TM is the world's first electric vehicle range calculator which relies on a physics simulator instead of approximations or other 'tricks'. This allows us to have much greater accuracy then other techniques. Our users can pick a route and calculate how much of a charge it will take to reach their destination, with everything from terrain to weather forecasts taken into account. Places to charge at are plotted along the route

A traditional electric vehicle charger map will show only electric vehicle-specific chargers. However, these chargers are few and far between. Rather than leaving our drivers stranded, we show them EV chargers, places that rent spaces with high power sockets (such as RV parks), places that commonly provide power to EV owners in emergencies (such as fire departments), et cetera."